


Our Brief Wage

by toujours_nigel



Series: Charioteer Nazi AU [1]
Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:18:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is part 1 of a currently two-parter AU of the Charioteer where the Nazis win the war, a distinct possibility in 1940.</p><p>Dark AU, fairly inevitably violent.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Our Brief Wage

**Author's Note:**

> this is part 1 of a currently two-parter AU of the Charioteer where the Nazis win the war, a distinct possibility in 1940.
> 
> Dark AU, fairly inevitably violent.

Alec was heavy. He hadn’t thought of that. Should’ve brought someone else along, except there’d been nobody to bring. It’d have been far too risky. Better this way, and there was no job where he would be missed, it was so very easy to believe any news of illness. And he owed it to Alec. Would have to go back to the flat later; not that there would be much to put away, Alec would have made sure of that. Bloody Alec. Where he’d found enough to grow heavy on God alone knew. He’d been lighter five years ago, Ralph was sure, and that’d been before rationing.

It would’ve been easy to simply leave him there, or drag him to the street and dump him on the pavement. Nobody rolled corpses over these days, or they’d never get any work done. But Alec was too whole, and for his sins too well-known in the neighbourhood. Somebody would have recognised him. Somebody else would have started asking questions. Too risky.

The earth was loose, here. Too many shallow graves by the road. They’d used to come driving down it, before the war—stop at a pub called The Green Dragon, where mine host had a long memory and a better cook. Full to the brim with Jerries now, sure to be. All the houses around had soldiers billeted in them, saved employing more jackboots to patrol the neighbourhood. The first lot had been murdered in their beds, that’d brought the jackboots down with a resounding thud. The new boys had been around six months, very gracious to demobbed old officers, very kind, too too kind. Young brutes barely out of school, Joshua’d been itching for weeks to teach them a lesson. Possibly he’d mentioned his plans to someone less than loyal.

The spade entered the soil easily; hit an obstruction barely inches in. A hand touched his through the gravel spilling out from the blade—a child’s hand, probably, narrower in its entirety than his right hand. He kicked dirt back onto the grave, packed the earth down roughly over her flesh, dragged Alec down the slope, further into the darkness.

Harder ground here, dotted with bushes. No trees around, no peculiarities of ground. It would in any case be needlessly sentimental to try for a landmark; this was risky enough already. He hadn’t been able to avoid bringing the car. At least it was a clear night, if moonless. No other cars on the road, and the lights from town had never been visible from this place, not even Before.

It was easy to see why the child had been buried so near the sky—the spade bit cruelly into his hand and only slowly into the earth. Not one man’s work, in the darkness, hiding a friend like hoarding treasure, destroying evidence. Move right along, officers, nothing to see here—on your right five minutes down the road there’s a pub that does a nice steak.

Someone would have to write the Deacons, he had had the address a few years ago; it would be best to contact Julia and have her write, would look least suspicious. They would have to think of a plausible reason of death, but Alec’s parents hadn’t seen him in years, they might believe anything. Possibly they wouldn’t care, but it didn’t do to assume.

There had been trees here, before; the roots were still in the soil, gnarled and twisted deep, netting the earth. Old wood, brittle and splintering in his grip, staying in place. At least Alec would be buried deep, feed the worms in peace.

It had been stupid, bloody stupid to have brought Alec away. Someone might have noticed Alec entering his flat, someone might have seen him leaving it with Alec—one of the neighbours, the landlord, the Jerries billeted two houses down. By now they were bound to have noticed Alec’s absence, dinner was a communal affair at the landlord’s table. Better to have left him there with the bottles emptied out beside him. Left him and left with the few incriminating articles. Not much by way of letters and photographs, but there were bound to be copies of prescriptions made out to people he should never have met. Joshua. Jacob. Phillip. Michael. Alec had been their only doctor for nearly a year, since Sandy, since Patrick. Folly to have dragged him all the way out here, looked suspicious. Pevensie’d had more sense than him, taken the stairs at a run after helping him settle Alec naturally in the passenger’s seat, bloated face obscured under the brim of his hat—Alec had hit his head on the way down, bruised his forehead. Hardly mattered, now, pathetic to think of it. He would have to go by the flat to pick Edmund up, but there was sure to be no trace at all of Alec’s life in the flat. All put away neatly, ship-shape Bristol-fashion, better than he ever could—Edmund’d had far too much experience playing sonderkommando in the last couple of months to leave a mess.

The roots were out now. He would have to put them back in when he filled the grave, stack them neatly over Alec. Lucky it was such barren ground, easiest to make it look undisturbed. By rights he should go into the ground naked, but if he were found that would be even more suspicious—though it would be impossible, still, to pass Alec off as a pauper, his hands were too fine, for one; his clothes were neat and well-kept and had once been expensive. Alec had used to live a bit beyond his means, when he had been a medical student in pre-war Bridstow. He’d been twenty-two, when they’d met first, and surer of himself than Ralph had liked. Five years ago.

It proved somewhat more difficult than he’d foreseen, to manoeuvre the corpse into the grave. The walk to his car seemed longer, too, and the drive back.


End file.
